College age minstrels, playing the songs of their hearts. He closes his eyes and strums his guitar, his body swaying to the music. I close my eyes to listen, leaning forward. The others around me are oblivious. A girl tells jokes to her friend, another catches up on lost time. Sometimes I don’t understand, and I try to filter out the noise. Later that night a song ends and the silence pervades. It lingered for a moment, the crowd afraid to disrupt the moment with applause. That’s when you know it’s right.
Today I came face to face with a certain dilemma. Whether you know it or not you have an organized priority list for all of your beliefs. Some of them are worth dying for, others are not. Your belief in the superiority of Macintosh computers, for example, is not an extremely important belief. You learn to live with those who don’t care too much for Macs. However, you also believe that forgiveness through Jesus Christ is the only way to eternal life. That is an important belief, and one you might even give your life for. In between is an expansive list of beliefs that range in importance. Some are central to Christian belief. Others are mere opinion. Some have set the boundaries between denominations. Beliefs over the sacraments–communion and baptism would be two fine examples. But other beliefs aren’t nearly as important. I believe eating breakfast every day is good for you and important. But among my roommates I’m the minority, and we all seem to live with that. At my church back home, rock ‘n roll wasn’t looked on too favorably. But despite our differences in belief, I managed to serve in that church without too much trouble.
The dilemma I faced today was how important are some of those minor beliefs? Someone told me that my view point was fundamentally opposed to their view point, and therefore we couldn’t work together–all based on a minor point of belief, similar to me liking breakfast. I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I dropped my defenses and decided to stop arguing over the minor belief. Neither of us was going to give any ground, and I didn’t see the point in debating. But I explained this simple idea in some situations you need to agree to disagree. I’m not too sure how they’ll take that. I’m still waiting for an answer. It seems sadly quiet that few people understand this concept today. Everyone has their own opinion, and I’m always right, darn it. I don’t really care what your opinion is, and frankly I don’t have to listen to it, or put up with it. It’s not a very friendly philosophy, is it? Seems to slam doors in people’s faces and create a vast hall of narrow mindedness. But then again, maybe that’s just my opinion.